Chamber and committees

Thank you. Briefly, Mr Duncan.

If you would write to the committee, that would be helpful. Thank you.

I agree with my colleague’s points; we have heard strong evidence that there needs to be a much more robust process for licensing waste handlers. If we are going to put obligations on people to be more cognisant in checking how their waste is disposed of and ask them to use a licensed waste handler, we need to improve that process significantly.

With regard to the creation of a civil penalty, does the minister agree that we still need to do much more, across local authorities and the population as a whole, to inform people about recycling processes in order to help them to do the right thing?

I think that a lot of the contamination and fly-tipping is inadvertent. It happens because people are not aware of the rules, as they live busy lives and have other things to think about, so I am slightly concerned about the measure. When we create new civil penalties or criminal offences, we need to think carefully about enforcement, proportionality and ensuring that the processes are in place to help people to do the right thing. We have got more work to do in that regard.

I appreciate that. However, I am conscious that the approach will require a significant increase in the number of accessible facilities that people can walk to or get the bus to, and do not need to drive to. What are our timelines in that regard? What is the vision? What will the approach look like in urban areas and rural areas? I appreciate that that will be set out in the strategy, but it would be good, at this juncture, to get a sense of where we are moving to. I think that your official is keen to come in on that point—at your discretion, of course.

We all agree that we need to achieve that consistency.

Will that mean un-ring-fenced funding for local authorities and the third sector, to give them the freedom and the capacity to deliver, in the spirit of the Verity house agreement? Delivery is everything.

Finally, on the considerations around repair and reuse, I know that the minister is familiar with the Edinburgh Remakery in Leith, in my constituency, which the committee also visited recently. If we are to grow such facilities and opportunities, is there an understanding in Government, the route map and the strategy that there will need to be either co-ordination with Government and investment in the third sector or provision from Government to expand those facilities if the bill and the following actions are to have the meaningful effect to which the bill aspires?

I will build on the end of my first question.

We have discussed various impacts of the bill. Overall, we share the collective position that it makes sense to repair and reuse things if we can. There is huge opportunity in that for skills, jobs and economic development. How will the strategy, when it is produced, provide the conditions for a thriving reuse and repair sector in Scotland? What consideration has been given to how the strategy can encourage reuse and repair hubs, which I mentioned earlier, and to whether that should be public sector-led or facilitated in collaboration with the third sector and social enterprises? There are huge opportunities for the social enterprise sector. How do we encourage and expand the networks? Can you set out in more detail the practicalities of delivering reuse and repair on a larger scale?

In Edinburgh, multiple companies collect commercial waste in a fairly similar way. It is a cluttered landscape. Is there a need to try to streamline some of those processes, as well as the processes for household waste?

I mean the civil penalty. Is a staging of the implementation of the act envisaged or is the intention to implement it as a whole?